Quikr set to enter billion-dollar club

MUMBAI: Tiger Global is leading a $150-million (Rs 950 crore approximately) financing round in online classifieds major Quikr, valuing it at a billion dollars post the investment

Quikr will join the fast-expanding list of privately held domestic tech unicorns, companies valued at over $1 billion, as an unprecedented amount of investor money flows into the Indian consumer internet sector. Others in this exclusive club include the likes of e-commerce biggie Flipkart, Snapdeal, taxi aggregator Ola (post its new round), data cruncher Mu Sigma and mobile ad network InMobi.

The new round will likely be Tiger’s largest investment ($110 million overall) in a domestic internet startup after Flipkart, in which it has pumped in over $700 million

Quikr had raised $60 million in September last year, led by Tiger Global, at a valuation of $400 million. The New York-based investment fund has funnelled more than a billion dollars across two dozen consumer tech ventures, out of which three (Flipkart, Ola, Quikr) have been accorded the unicorn status.

The company, founded by Chulet, an IIT-Delhi and IIM-Calcutta alumnus, has in all raised $200 million in capital (excluding the latest round), and competes directly with OLX, which is backed by the South African internet and media giant Naspers. Quikr claims to be facilitating 1.5 million monthly transactions with 30 million unique users visiting the site. Based on the concept of the American classifieds giant Craigslist, Quikr registers listings for categories like jobs, automobiles, used goods, services and electronics.